bout that," Mr. Tooting replied. "The more advertising
you get, the better, and this shows that the right people are behind you.
Mrs. Pomfret's a smart woman, all right. She knows her job. And here's
more advertising," he continued, shoving another sheet across the desk,
"a fine likeness of you in caricature labelled, 'Ajax defying the
Lightning.' Who's Ajax? There was an Italian, a street contractor, with
that name--or something like it--in Newcastle a couple of years ago--in
the eighth ward."

In these days, when false rumours fly apace to the injury of innocent
men, it is well to get at the truth, if possible. It is not true that Mr.
Paul Pardriff, of the 'Ripton Record,' has been to Wedderburn. Mr.
Pardriff was getting into a buggy to go--somewhere--when he chanced to
meet the Honourable Brush Bascom, and the buggy was sent back to the
livery-stable. Mr. Tooting had been to see Mr. Pardriff before the
world-quaking announcement of June 7th, and had found Mr. Pardriff a
reformer who did not believe that the railroad should run the State. But
the editor of the Ripton Record was a man after Emerson's own heart: "a
foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds"--and Mr. Pardriff
did not go to Wedderburn. He went off on an excursion up the State
instead, for he had been working too hard; and he returned, as many men
do from their travels, a conservative. He listened coldly to Mr.
Tooting's impassioned pleas for cleaner politics, until Mr. Tooting
revealed the fact that his pockets were full of copy. It seems that a
biography was to be printed--a biography which would, undoubtedly, be in
great demand; the biography of a public benefactor, illustrated with
original photographs and views in the country. Mr. Tooting and Mr.
Pardriff both being men of the world, some exceeding plain talk ensued
between them, and when two such minds unite, a way out is sure to be
found. One can be both a conservative and a radical--if one is clever.
There were other columns in Mr. Pardriff's paper besides editorial
columns; editorial columns, Mr. Pardriff said, were sacred to his
convictions. Certain thumb-worn schedules were referred to. Paul
Pardriff, Ripton, agreed to be the publisher of the biography.

The next edition of the Record was an example of what Mr. Emerson meant.
Three columns contained extracts of absorbing interest from the
forthcoming biography and, on another page, an editorial. The Honourable
Humphrey Crewe, of Lei